This is one of the biggest problems I feel I run into playing my usual 2/5 game. I feel like the average 2/5 player puts you on AK as soon as you three bet. So it is very hard to get paid by worse when you hit and they tend to not fold when I miss. Should I be flatting this hand to counter this issue? If I do that I feel like I will lose equity due to missing about 2/3 flops and folding to many c bets. And how often am I gonna flop a pair and someone else has the same pair but lower kicker? Like 10% of time? Doesn't seem that profitable lol.

Other question is in regards to three betting these hands from the blinds, or even raising limpers with them from the blinds. Obviously they are strong hands and building the pot is important, but if one or normally multiple people are gonna call my raise in position is raising the more profitable play? Again they generally put me on these types of hands so when I miss flop I'm oop vs lots of mid pairs and suited connectors and a cbet prob won't get through. I'm not arguing that I shouldn't raise, I just want a better understanding of why.

Well what is your 3 bet range? If it's {AK,AQs,JJ+) that's 44 combos of which only 16 are AK. If players are always putting you on a small subset of your range - then that seems like an opportunity to exploit.

You should be 3-betting most of the time, but you should cut down your c-betting with those hands when you miss and don't have a decent backdoor equity route. And on the other side when your heads up and get an ace or king high dry flop you should c-bet more often when you miss, because it will work more often. Don't fall into the passive player trap of flatting AK/AQ very often, once your opponents realize your playing that way you will hit TPTK and lose big pots to two pair too often.

Out of the blinds you need to find the right size to apply enough pressure. Your not trying to build a pot in this situation, you should be fine with everybody folding and your looking for one opponent at most.

start 3betting any suited ace as well in position like A2 - A5 and AT - AK

I've stacked a few players 3betting hands like A3 and A7 and when the flop comes 33X or 77X they usually lose a big pot since they never 4bet with out AA and they have a hand like QQ or JJ.

Here is a good vid by James Sweeney (SplitSuit) that addresses the issue.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=zzu8ZlP--ww


Granted this is designed for online play but most of the rules apply.

He has several vids on how to play AK you can check out on youtube. GL

When I think of AK, I think of what I remember from Super Systems. Top Top is rarely going to be a stack off hand. Most of the time, you are aggressive pre and on the flop only. After that you are playing pot control and trying to get to showdown cheaply.

The obvious solution is to bet when they are losing to your "obvious" AK when you don't have anything either and value bet the snot out of them when you have better than "AK" when it misses.

How is this true for 3bet pots in live 1/3 and 2/5 100bb capped games where you'll have hardly anything left after a pre flop 3bet and flop cbet have gone in?